ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on contemporary proposals to implement private property regimes on First Nations reserves. It examines the arguments used by proponents of the First Nations Property Ownership Act to motivate support for this legislation, demonstrating how it represents a rearticulation of past proposals, albeit as a 'restoration' of precolonial property rights regimes. The chapter discusses how this legislation informs contemporary discussions within academia concerning Marx's theory of primitive accumulation. It also discusses how a dispute over First Nations property rights demonstrates that both settler colonial subjection and continued assertions of Indigenous identity are inseparable from relationships with land. The chapter analyses how the FNPOA represents the continued ascendency of 'recognition' politics in Canada. It argues that the FNPOA provides a key example of the Canadian state's need to continuously redefine its settler colonial strategies against Indigenous peoples, which in turn demonstrates the role Indigenous struggles play in forcing these redefinitions.
